intellectualising triviae and brooding on minutiae

Thursday, March 13, 2008

This incident happened in the month of Jan when I was travelling to chennai from mumbai to attend my gokul's wedding. I guess the great sensex market crash also happened at around the same time. This crash, I think, was precipitated by the Reliance Power IPO which siphoned off a lot of money from the market. In a couple of weeks or so the market fell by a huge marin and there was a lot of news abt investors losing their 2-3 years earning in one go. There was mayhem and gloom all around in Mumbai and it was perceptible even in my college NMIMS. I empthaised with these investors and could understand the dark side of life that they were going through. Being a salaried person I could understand how one feels when one loses one's 2-3 years of earnings in 2 weeks. It pains...really pains... U have to worry about ur family which is depedant on the sole bread winner.

These events were still playing in my mind in the train when I was travelling to chennai. In the train at around 4:00 pm a lil girl aged around 10 years was shouting her heart out to attract ppl to buy her roasted peanutI bought a few for Rs.5 and handed her a Rs.20 note. She had a huge bundle of papers (which were used to make cones to hold the peanuts) stashed around the peanuts. She deftly moved her hand in about 3-4 places and then handed over the required change of Rs.15. I was surprised and asker her as to why she did that. She promptly answered and told me that if someone steals the money from her she will only lose a small amount and not the whole day's earnings. I was really admired her for wat she did and her answer can be summarised in a management phrase as "Dont put all ur eggs in one basket". I connected these golden words of hers with the situation of the investors. I think we all can learn an important lesson from humble peanut seller. We should not become greedy and invest all our money at one place. Small but very important... Thats what i think and one that we should remember for our future.

Thank You Ms.Peanut Seller (Forgot to ask her name... I was thinking so much that this did not occur to me...so stupid of me) - I learnt something very important for my life from u...

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The observation and opinion that I am going to write is from my own past experience abt observing ppl...

Humans are very complex in their thought process and behaviour, but there is some thing very basic and innate in every human... "To reach out to another human". I think that this is very primitive of every human. Inspite of all the sophistication we have achieved we cant ignore things which have been wired into us through evolution. We are social animals and we reach out to others in the same way others reach out to us.

I have observed this behaviour in ppl normally. Say ur walking in the corridor and u suddenly bump into someone u know and u say "Hi", and if the other person notices ur greeting he/she immediately responds with a gesture to acknowledge ur greeting. This is the way we humans connect with each other. This acknowledgement is very spontaneous. It happens in nano seconds and ppl dont have time to react for this acknowledgement. This is the way we connect!!!

But I have seen a few ppl who are able to suppress this basic human behaviour. Inspite of noticing ur greeting they can in that nanosecond choose not to say hi to u or acknowledge ur greeting. Over a period of time of observation, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot trust them. I find it very tuff to trust these kinda ppl who can suppress their basic human behaviour. A person who does this has too much control over himself which, according to me, does not indicate a healthy personality.

The views are entirely mine and you can agree to disagree with me. I have come to this conclusion after observing different ppl from different walks of life intensely and closely over a period of time and on various instances.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I am sure any hindu would give a kick on my backside if i start off by saying "theory of hinduism". well basically there is nothing which u can call as hinduism, its juss sanathana dharma and its very highly pluralistic in nature. But there is one thing common across the customs and beliefs of "sanathana dharma". The only thing that differentiates hinduism from other religions is the belief that there are seven worlds through which the soul moves and the soul never dies. Soul moves through these seven worlds and its final salvation is when it merges with the paramatma. The soul moves from a body of one living thing to another based on the karma it does and punya and paapa that it accumulates. So its basically a kind of negatives and positives get cancelled and ur final balance remains as +ve or -ve based on the sum total. And every karma that the person does does not have equal weightage. Some actsget more +ve points and so on. Same with the negative acts also.

So the other day i was juss ruminating and trying to put things in todays perspective. Application of theory as i am being taught in my MBA classes. Then something basic struck me. If the soul cannot be created or destroyed and if every human being needs a soul how come our population is exploding this way. Is there a flaw in sanathana dharma??? Thats wat intrigued me and plzz read ahead if it intrigues u too... :)

Well the human population is increasing coz other living things are being reduced. The rate at which species are becoming extinct and the rate at which we are losing the green cover explains everything. The human population is increasing at the expense of other animals and trees/plants. So that total number of souls is constant and its only that the souls are more into taking the form of humans. So this gets us to another doubt. Why should the souls take the form of human coz according to the dharma human form is the highest form that a soul can take and it becomes easier for the soul to merge with the paramatma through the human form. So basically for the soul to take a human form there should be some good that it should have done in the previous animal/plant birth. Well dharma has a reason for that too. One gets lotsa positive points when one dies for the betterment of another living being. These living beings die to help humans lead a better life and thus have given up their life for us humans. Hence they getlotsa +ve points and thus that soul takes a human form.

Monday, July 2, 2007

well i felt like adding a new word to the english dictionary ...i guess am sounding very rude and big for my shoes...

well my intention was nothing of that sort...i was looking around for a word which would solve my need, which unfortunately i didnt find so i created one which would solve it...speak of "necessity being the mother of invention"...

well now lets looks at my need...i somehow have fallen too much in love with my blog...i started loving this virtual extension of my real self to a very great extent...well this sounds much like narcissist which means a person who loves himself a lot...so does this sound derogatory...

and the similarity juss ends just where it begins...

i started loving my blogs so much because it helps me think a lot... to even put down a couple of lines i have to think a lot... the creative piscean in me wakes up everytime i write and this satisfies... i seriously feel that the best way to improve ones knowledge is to write... i dont mean to say that stop reading ... wat i mean to say is that writing and reading feed each other in a man and both are continuous feedback processes...

Whenever i notice smth different or an anomaly around me i wanna analyse it, find out the causes and post a blog... thats why i like my blog...am sure even u guys who are reading my blogs out here will appreciate this new word and also understand the need behind it...

Sunday, July 1, 2007

well sounds like a stupid question naa...this is the quintessential question which Microsoft asks...

had read a lot abt this question thru my friends and also on the internet....at first it sounds like a stupid question right...even if we try to think a bit, it sounds more like a marketing question right...how will u sell smth to someone who has abundance of it around him...more of wat the marketing guys do... (no pun intended)

sounded illogical to me and i juss forgot abt it for some time...then we had these rains in mumbai pounding and drowing the city...was a house arrest for most of us...was feeling bored so i thought lemme think abt this question a bit...

lets start answering this from the scratch... should involve more of ur brain ....lets not start by analysing the question but lets start from microsoft...well microsoft was asking this question to a technical guy....why would microsoft ask a maketing kinda question to a technical guy who would be working on the latest technologies and solve bugs... they need more of geeks...read somewhere that microsoft wants ppl who get excited at the mere mention of technology... even at the fag end of the day anything related to technology should stir up his senses and all that stuff.. a thorough geeky kinda guy....so the only thing we know is that microsoft wants technology guys...well thats where the answer lies ....

so lets rephrase the question....its not"how to sell ice to an eskimo"...it becomes"How to sell I.C.E to an eskimo"...

so wats the difference... I.C.E is a technology or more specifically a framework for the next gen of IMs (instant messengers)....so now the question becomes easy to answer and its very easy to sell I.C.E to an eskimo....

so the greatness of the question does not lie in answering the question.. but in realising as to how to work through the question from the point of reference of technology.... the rest of it is easy...

Microsoft hasnt become MICROSOFT juss like that....the guys who have made that company think differently and therein lies the greatness of the company... the people factor...

hats off to microsoft guys and specifically to the guy who has framed this question....

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

well,i am juss copy pasting my SOP which i had written for my PI in NMIMS....i wanna copy paste it coz i had thought (and i rarely think) for about 1.5 hrs to prepare this small an essay.... had to rack my brains and think about myself... the best part of preparing for the mba exams is that u get to understand urself and be happy with urself... am happy to get into a top college in india for doing my mba but if u ask me wat was the one thing that i liked the most while doing my prep i would say "Unlearning and Learning" ... this is a complicated and tuff process and realising urself is a much tougher task... it takes some time for u to know urself.... i especially feel indians are more into doing wat their parents want, the image we have abt ourself is not wat we really have its more wat others think abt us. So when u start realising urself u ponder and ruminate and finally get a pic of urself....

here starts my SOP-----------------------------------------BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH-----------------------------------------Change is the only thing constant in this world. To handle change effectively and successfully one needs to have a sound academic foundation as well as practical implementation of this knowledge.

My good academic background is evident from the fact that I stood in the top 100 in my state during my 10th exams for which I was awarded a scholarship. I was also in the top 0.4% in EAMCET’97.

In my career in Wipro, I had received client appreciation and was consequently chosen as Wipro Buddy to familiarize new recruits with the culture of Wipro. I was also selected for FMP (Future Manager Program) and stood first in the selection process. In Aricent, I was involved in redesigning a module (IP) which resulted in considerable reduction of the maintenance and enhancement cycles. This shows that the application of my theory has been noteworthy and has been appreciated.

A well rounded personality also has interests and passions. I like playing table tennis and have won quite a few prizes in it. My passion is “whistling songs” and have given stage shows in my college and in my organization.

My strengths are perseverance, risk taking ability and good inter personal skills and weakness is “rigid about decision making”.

My entrepreneurial skill is evident from the fact that I had developed a successful business model, MODEL EAMCET 2000, which provided a common platform for the students in the twin cities to test their abilities among their peers prior to the actual exam (EAMCET). It was sponsored by ECIT and a total of 3000 students had taken this exam.

I strongly believe that I bring a unique combination of competencies to NMIMS which will further be honed and developed in an atmosphere of symbiotic learning.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Lemme talk on my fav topic… “Roads in bangalore (bng/bang for short)”. Everyone in Bangalore has cried hoarse over the roads in bng. From Azim Premji to Narayana Murthy to every tom, dick and harry in Bangalore.

I tried to connect a few things with the state of roads in bang. I am not finding the root cause of the problem or the underlying cause. I dunno so much abt state affairs and functioning so I cant comment on that. Might write something on it when I get to know a few more things.

To me state of bang roads evokes a similarity with the pre-1991 indian socialism. Well u must be thinking how are they connected…

1) No matter how BIG, brilliant or innovative ur idea was u had go thru the bureaucratic setup and babudom of India to get ur plan sanctioned… By the time this would have been done (if ur following the right path) u would have got frustrated, dejected and disappointed which makes u think that ur idea was worthless. U will never realize the potential of ur idea or company after being caught in the mess of bureaucracy.2) With bang roads .. no matter how BIG, fast or innovative ur car is u have to go thru the dirty, shabby, gross and ill treated roads. Even if ur car can churn out 350bhp power and zoom to 100 kmph in 6 secs theres no worth for it. U have to travel at the speed of 10-15 kmph and reach ur destination. By the time u reach ur destination even in a Mercedes benz u get frustrated, tired. Ur productivity is reduced by the time u reach ur office. U will never know the potential/greatness of ur car, its full potential is lost somewhere in the bang roads.3) Is it good in a society for everyone to be equal??? Well I would say is it good for any company where all the employees are alike in every aspect. I am sure that such a company might reach great heights for some years but when it vanishes it will vanish in such a way that there wont remain any traces of it. It is dead since its inception. Utopic society seems very nice and rosy but has great inherent flaws. Differences exist everywhere and need to be accepted. There is always an advantageous and disadvantageous way out in a difference. What matters is how we accept and adopt the advantageous way????4) Coming back to roads…Both these things ie Indian socialism and bang roads have happened inspite of the govt knowing what a deleterious effect this can have on the economy of a country/city.

And coming to the answer I am still thinking of it. I think the answer lies in post 1991 india ... why did india change ... if u have any comments/thoughts/opinions do lemme know ...